How much does an SD card stick out of the SD card slot on the 2015 Dell XPS 13? This much:
I’d have liked to have seen the card be completely flush – with my HP Envy Spectre 14 I leave a 128 GB SD card in the slot for extra storage – but given the small size of the XPS 13, I’m not very surprised by this. It’s similar to what Apple did with the Macbook Air. I wonder if one of these would fit in the Dell XPS 13? I’m just glad Dell put an SD card slot in there, unlike the other OEMs who think a microSD card slot is somehow good enough. It’s not, at least for us photographers…
There’re laptops with microSD cards?
My peeve is that the card reader is usually stuck at USB 2.0 speeds.
Also PNY has a series of SD cards with shortened heights. They’re designed for Macbooks but who knows if there’s one that’ll be just nice for the Dell.
I thought the Yoga 3 went microSD, but I was wrong – it’s still SD. The HP Stream 13 takes microSD while, weirdly, the smaller Stream 11 takes SD. Go figure. The new Samsung ATIV announced at CES 2015 is also microSD only. The industry is definitely headed in this direction, much to my dismay.
Thanks for the detail. Just the info I needed for my new lappy.
Glad I could help!
I’m looking at buying an xps 13 myself. Did you ever find a card that fit flush? What transfer speeds are you getting?
Hi there Grendel. No, I never looked for one that was flush. Transfer speeds off a 64GB Sandisk Extreme Pro UHS3 SD card. Reading off the card and writing to my XPS 13, I’m seeing around 80 MB/s. Writing to the card, I’m seeing around 65 MB/s.
I have a BaseQi Micro SD adapter with a samsung evo+ micro SD (128 GBs). it used to work with my Surface Book (also sits very flush on it). but now on my Dell XPS 15 it doesnt work (it goes a bit deeper than the edge). Anyone knows any Micro SD card adapters that sit well (and work) with XPS 15?
It’s very unlikely anyone will see your question here, so I’d suggest going to the Amazon product page and asking the question there.
That is horrible. Thank you so much for posting this. I am afraid I will have to find another laptop.
I wonder if the 2016 XPS 13 has the same design. I’d like to keep a standard size 512GB SD card in to expand the storage. I also like my laptop to read the pictures taken on my cameras.
You’re welcome. I’m quite certain the 2016 XPS 13 is the same (I’ve seen no evidence they changed the internal layout), though I can’t say for sure. You have a few options for smaller SD cards or (better yet) microSD card adaptors:
https://smile.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=macbook+sd+card&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Amacbook+sd+card
Thank you Jason. I am not sure the adaptors for MacBook Air will have a flush fit. It may end up stuck in there.
If the space is that precious, they may as well make it a microSD slot.
microSD cards are a lot more expensive, and slower though.